


Things My Heart Used to Know

by PandaPaladin



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff, Inspired by Anastasia (1997 & Broadway), One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaPaladin/pseuds/PandaPaladin
Summary: “Kara, I swear to God,what the hell are you doing?”Alex asked her again, turning to face her with a frown. “We don’t even know if that’s really her. And even if it is, why do you care? Why are you doing this?”“Because we don’tknow,but it’s possible, and that’s ten times better than what other people are doing on the street,” Kara hissed at her. “Think about it. Other people are parading every green-eyed, raven-haired girl with passable acting skills just so they can weasel their way to fortune. But she— there’s this part of me. I don’t know. It could beherand I’d rather go through hell and find out she wasn’t than let her get away again.”(Or the Anastasia AU where Lena is Anastasia)





	Things My Heart Used to Know

**Author's Note:**

> Streaky is in this fic because I said so and also because I miss the two seconds he was in an episode. Also I have this tendency to just pass an excerpt as a description because descriptions!! are so! hard!! Anyway enjoy my 20k words of an Anastasia AU I promised a while back.

Lena Luthor was never meant for a life like this. She made a vow to never take it for granted.

Lavish gowns, sparkly crowns, and extravagant jewelry adorned her with every minute of every day. She was adored by her older brother, Lex, who frequently put his princely duties aside to teach her how to dance and spend their afternoons with the horses. Her best friend, Kara, whom she loved with every part of her soul stood by her side no matter what. They held hands whenever they ran away from the angry victims of their newest pranks, laughing joyfully with their childish ruckus. 

She loved everything about her life.

That was until her brilliant mind became a blank slate of nothing but with a blurted out name, a necklace cold against her heart. It was like fishing in an empty ice pond, waiting with numb fingers and shivering bones to bring something out. But nothing does. 

* * *

“Go fish,” Alex said monotonously.

  
“Can we play something else?” Kara begged, setting down her deck of cards. Alex watched her without budging, eyebrow only raised in slight annoyance. “Like rummy. Or blackjack.”

“How is it that you only wanna play another game when you’re losing, Kara?”

Kara shrugged. “Tough luck?”

  
Alex sighed and set down her deck, face down. Even when Kara lost, Alex never gave her any satisfaction. “Look, I’m trying my best to be there for you. Alright? I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Pursing her lips, Kara collected their cards and tapped it on their wobbly table. She began shuffling while she said, “Maybe make our passports a bit faster?”

“Kinda hard when everyone in National City is trying to get to Metropolis.”

“I know,” Kara groaned. She tapped their cards a second time for another shuffle. “By the time we’re allowed on a bus, every job in Metropolis would be taken.”

When Alex says everyone, she means _ everyone _in National City. There was a clamor for the already-populated city because of the rumor about the first royal gala in ten years. There also came the news the Empress proposed to them— anyone who can bring her sweet, dear Lena back to her was to win a hundred fifty thousand dollars, plus a hefty one hundred pounds of gold. With the official news came forth a whisper of additional so-called insights by men and women who had no better things to do in their spare time. They murmured silently to their friends about taking the Grand Duchess’ hand in marriage, to secure a spot with the royal family.

  
Even though her friends meant well, Kara had to take offense from them for even suggesting she was going to Metropolis to pull the same con as everybody else.

  
  
“Then why the hell are you going there?” Winn had asked her, flabbergasted. “Every bus, boat, and train in America are clogged for the rest of the year.”

“I just wanna see Clark,” she told them stupidly. She never mentioned that Eliza was too old to work, that Alex needed a new job and her own paid too little. 

Their rickety apartment soon became too much for them to live in. They snuck into the old Luthor mansion, making it their temporary residence. Unfortunately, it was older than they realized, for every wall and roof in the building was the verge of collapse. Nested under the most stable part of the mansion they could find, Alex and Kara Danvers played a game of go fish on a rounded table at the top of the grand stairs. 

If Kara craned her neck to the right, she would be face to face with the lost princess. Her steely, painted green eyes would stare back at her. 

Looking into Lena’s eyes was a pain too unbearable to resist. It pressed on her chest everyday for the past ten years, a guilt that was too complex, too specific to tell another person that wasn’t there with her. It was a sin to know that she was the only thing standing between the fate and death of her friend.

Kara hadn’t realized she was still shuffling mindlessly with their cards until Alex shook her shoulder. Her head went up. “Sorry. What’d you say?” she said with an apologetic look.

  
Rolling her eyes, Alex took the cards from her hands and shuffled it herself. It rifled in her hands, fingers carding through them with barely a touch. “I said,” Alex said slowly, stacking their cards neatly on the table, “We can always go somewhere else. Midvale is nice around this time of year.”

“I know. That’s all Eliza’s been saying,” Kara said dryly. Their playing cards sat in the middle between them, untouched. “But we’ve been through it, Alex. Midvale’s just as—”

“—shoddy as National City,” Alex ended for her. She leaned over and took Kara’s hands in hers. “I _ know,_ Kara. And I know how badly you wanna get out of here and make a living that— that didn’t involve selling stuff that belonged to them.” Them being the Luthors, of course. 

The Luthors, who took her in and let her work as a kitchen girl. The Luthors, who had a wonderful daughter whose laugh was just as bright as her mind.

When they died, Kara took the spare key she got from working in the kitchen and stole over half of the priceless trinkets in their mansion. Now, their old home was nothing but a ghost town, already stripped naked by the many crooks that came by to take their pay.

Alex immediately recognized the look on her face. She squeezed Kara’s hands. “She’s proud of you,” she said softly. 

  
“How could you say that?” Her voice was harsh, though it never left as a whisper.

Before Alex could respond, a crash in the room below them jolted their bodies. Kara immediately got up and put a hand on her hip, the small shiv resting under her shirt. Alex mimicked her moves, though she had a much bigger shiv already pulled out into her hand.

  
“Who’s there?” Alex demanded.

A blur ran past their faces, sprinting to the other side of the room into another set of stairs. It was black and small, though nimble on its feet. When Alex tried to charge, Kara held her back with an arm. “Streaky!” she said, half scolding and half glad. “Streaky, come back here!”

A second face greeted them, much lankier than the cat. A person in a hood, quickly striding over to _ her _ cat and picking up _ her _damn cat. 

“That’s my cat!” She bounded down the stairs, refusing to wait for her sister to catch up. “That’s my cat, you weirdo!” she bellowed.

When she caught up with the hooded figure (who was cradling her poor cat in their arms), she grabbed the first thing she could find. An elbow, which wrestled out of her grip with surprising strength. The struggle to fight against one another shook the hood off the person’s face.

“Let go of my cat, you—!” she snapped. The woman was breathing heavily, watching Kara with wide, rich green eyes. “Fiend?” she ended with a squeak.

  
“Oh yeah, a _ fiend_, that’s supposed to make her feel threatened,” Alex said sardonically. She tapped her sister’s shoulder to make her release the hard grip she had on the other girl. Streaky, who was usually fussy about being held in another person’s grasp, was calmly nestled in the arms of the stranger.

But Kara wasn’t listening.

She was too busy staring into this lady’s eyes. The jawline. The moles on her neck. She glanced up and down, her eyes nothing but a flurry of movement. Feeling violated, the girl shifted her chest away from Kara and said indignantly, “It’s very rude to stare at a woman, you know.”

“Sorry!” Kara’s throat was dry. Her tongue felt like sandpaper in her mouth. Alex, her ever-so observant sister, was looking at her with concern. She put a hand on Kara’s shoulder and called out her name, but Kara said nothing back to her. Instead, she turned her body nearly 180 degrees to look at the huge memorial painting of the Luthor family.

Then her eyes were back on the stranger, who was looking at her like she was crazy. Like she didn’t recognize her. That made Kara gulp, who tried to steady her thoughts as best as she could. “Who are you?” she finally said, her voice croaky and weak.

“I was actually going to ask you the same thing,” the woman said, her voice honeyed and sweet. Streaky looked like he was napping in her arms. “I was told this was where I could find the Danvers? The Danvers sisters?”

  
“That’s us,” Alex said for her. Alex’s eyes were narrowed, still in suspicion of this intruder. “Why?”

  
“Well, I’m not really supposed to say _ who _told me to find you,” the woman said. She was petting Streaky idly, who made no movements against it. “I just heard that, well, you two were making passports.”

“We are, yeah,” Alex said dryly. Kara was still staring at her.

  
“Okay, well I— I was just wondering if you could, I don’t know, maybe help me,” she said with a slight stammer, taking a step back from them, “that’s all.”

  
“Why do you think we would want to help you?” Alex asked her incredulously. Her crossed arms meant business. “We aren’t a charity case. Hell, we don’t even do it for other people for money. We—”

  
“Alex,” Kara hissed. She turned to her sister, her hand around her sister’s elbow. Before Alex could ask, Kara was dragging them away from the stairs, down to where another room was tucked under it. 

“Kara, wh—?”

  
Hands on her sister’s shoulders, she murmured, “What does she look like to you?”

  
“Someone who broke into the Luthors’ old mansion looking for something valuable to swipe,” Alex said bluntly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“No!” Kara was looking into her sister’s eyes, desperate for her to make the connection. “Think about it closer. The hair, the eyes, the—”

“Are you trying to insinuate that _ she’s_—?”

  
“It could be true.”

  
“Lillian Luthor is just fishing in an empty pond so she gets publicity for the gala. Everyone with a big enough head knows that—”

  
“But think about it, Alex.” The pleading in Kara’s eyes made Alex stop dead.

Mulling it over, Alex said, “I mean, when I saw her, I did think it, just for a split second…”

“Think more!” Kara urged.

  
“Why are you so determined to say she’s Lena?” Alex sounded downright incredulous.

“Because!”

“Because _ what?”_

“Are you both done chatting about me down there or am I just supposed to become a skeleton up here?” Lena’s— the woman’s head popped upside down from over the stairwell. She blinked at them and squinted.

Breath catching in her throat, Kara smiled as naturally as she could and came back up the stairs. “Sorry, we were just talking about… something.”

  
“Clearly.” There was subtle amusement in her voice. It was sweet, mulled over by the softness of her voice. If Kara closed her eyes, she could just imagine…

“Right!” she said quickly. She jumped over the railing with ease, landing her feet with a dull thump and creak of the floorboards beneath them. She cringed while Alex followed her up. “Why do you need a passport, Miss, um…?”

“Kieran,” answered the girl. She bent down and let Streaky out of her arms, who slid away from her and purred against Kara’s shin. The corner of Kieran’s lips turned up. “And I’m guessing you’re Kara Danvers?”

  
Kara tilted her head a little and crossed her arms. Alex was growing restless beside her, clearly not enjoying their interaction. “How do you know that?”

  
“A guy on the train station told me that Kara is the more forgiving one of the sisters.” Her green eyes shifted over to Alex, who scowled by her side. “So that means you’re Alex.”

  
“I don’t know what this guy told you, but we’ve never forged things for other people,” Alex told her, a clear bite to her tone. Streaky went in between her legs, soothing her with little purrs in his throat. It didn’t stop Alex from staring Kieran down, looking quite peeved for being interrupted. 

  
“He said you did it for friends,” Kieran said bluntly.

  
“Now, hold on—” Kara argued. She paused, then groaned out loud. She turned to look at her sister. “_Winn. _I think she was talking to Winn.”

“Winn?” Alex wasn’t shocked, but she was definitely annoyed. “I told him not to tell anyone! It was a _ one time _thing and I thought he knew that. But, clearly we can’t even trust—”

“I beat him at chess.” Her interruption made the sisters stop to look over at her. Kieran cleared her throat, trying her best not to seem small under their gazes. “I only met him last night, but we did a couple rounds of chess for a bet and I won all of them. He told me you’d be willing to make a passport because you apparently owe him for the… closet incident?”

  
Alex balked. 

  
Kara’s words were flying out of her mouth before she can sort them out in her head. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Grand Duchess Lena?”

  
Kieran raised a perfect eyebrow. “I— excuse me?”

  
Alex shot her a warning look, but Kara kept hammering on. “Do you see that portrait behind us? All the way from the other end of this ballroom? That’s the lost family.”

Kieran looked hesitant at her words. And frankly, she looked as if Kara had two more heads emerging from her neck. But she did as she was told, glancing behind Kara’s ear to squint at the portrait in the distance. Kara took her by the wrist and pulled her down the stairs, walking her towards the giant mural. The entire time, Kieran kept her eyes staring ahead, glancing back and forth between the people’s faces painted on the decaying walls.

They stopped right in front of it and Kieran tugged her wrist away from Kara, who dropped it the second she flinched. She reached over until she could touch the youngest’s chest. Green eyes and black hair stared back at her. A reflection.

  
“Who is this?” she mumbled quietly.

  
“Lena Luthor. The youngest of the affluent Luthor family,” Alex supplied with a touch of sarcasm. Her arms were crossed defensively over her chest, but the look on her face was less sharp. “Didn’t you hear the news? Half the country thinks she’s alive.”

  
Kieran took her hand away from the mural like it shocked her. Her eyes turned over to Kara’s. They were dark under the murky walls of the old manor— but it held Kara’s steadily. Like she was waiting for something.

  
Kara, realizing she hadn’t said anything the entire time, cleared her throat to bring their attention over to her. “I don’t know about you, but I think we can do more than just get you a passport out of National City,” she said with a friendly grin. When Kieran’s eyes lit up, questioning but relieved, Kara knew she made the right choice.

  
“Kara…” her sister warned by her side.

Kara took no heed of it. “You see the resemblance, right? I’m not the crazy one here?” She crossed her arms and pointed a lazy finger over to the child Kieran was staring at. “Kieran, I think that’s _ you._”

  
“Kara.” Alex sounded exasperated now. 

  
“Me?” Kieran gave them a little chuckle, but it left her mouth like an outlandish scoff. “I’m not— she looks like me, sure, but I would know if I was a lost princess.”

“Where are you from, Kieran?” Kara asked innocently enough. Because she was genuinely curious, and it was vital to everything she had to know. Her body was vibrating with energy, but she tried to swallow a hard pill and told herself to relax. To wait. Even implying that this woman could do anything with the Luthors was a dangerous gamble to make.

  
Kieran was chewing on her lower lip. “An orphanage,” she said with a frown. Streaky was meowing now, kneading his nails into the tapestry hung loosely on the railing beside them. “I’ve been there since I was eight, actually.”

Alex and Kara glanced at each other. “Where were you before that?” Alex inquired. She still sounded guarded. 

“I know how it’ll look when I say it, but trust me, you can’t jump to conclusions.” Kieran narrowed her eyes at them. “I… don’t know.”

_ “You don’t know?” _ Alex exclaimed, her voice echoing over the walls. Kara elbowed her rib and she grunted in response, shooting a glare to her sister. “What do you mean you don’t know? Like you can’t remember anything before that?” she said again, more quiet but still as incredulous as ever.

  
Kieran shrugged at them and stuffed her hands in her large coat’s pocket. “I woke up in a bed at an orphanage one day. I knew how old I was, and I knew my name, but that’s mostly it.” She reached a hand and slotted it in between her coat’s buttons, fishing around her chest. “I woke up with this necklace. It’s the only thing tying me to my life before.”

  
Kara leaned in, pushing her glasses up to see it. It was a circular pendant arranged in a flower pattern, except the petals were green gems. When the necklace turned around, she could see what was engraved with it. _ Together in Metropolis, _it read.

  
“You want to go to Metropolis to find who gave you this necklace.” It was a statement, not a question, from Alex. Both of the sisters leaned back and Kieran put her necklace back underneath her garments. “You know Metropolis is the largest city in America, right?”

“I know,” Kieran said. She lifted her chin up in defiance, eyes never leaving Alex’s. 

Sensing the hostility between them, Kara stepped up. “Look, we don’t know for sure that you’re Lena,” she said, catching the attention of the pair, “but who else looks the closest to her? It’s worth a shot, if you ask me. You might even find your family— and that’s what you want, right? In the end, neither of us can make you choose. We’re even getting tickets to Metropolis soon.”

  
Alex looked over at her. _ You’re lying, _she was saying through her eyes. Kara tried not to meet them. 

  
“So you’ll help me?” Kieran asked hopefully.

Kara shrugged. “My sister and I aren’t gonna take a stranger to Metropolis with us.” Kieran’s shoulders dropped. “It was really nice meeting you too. Alex and I have to get back.” Then she pivoted on a heel and swung an arm over her sister’s stiffened shoulders. They marched away, down the stairs, and halfway through the ballroom.

“Kara, what are you _ doing_?” Alex whispered harshly in her ear. 

  
“Just wait for it,” she said back, their cheeks nearly squished together. “Give it a couple seconds. Walk a little slower.”

Just like that, Kieran called after them, sounding breathless and panicked. “Wait!”

  
Kara and Alex stopped, her grin wide on her face. “I told you,” she whispered proudly.

  
“Kara, I swear to God, _ what the hell are you doing?”_ Alex asked her again, turning to face her with a frown. “We don’t even know if that’s really her. And even if it is, why do you _ care?_ Why are you doing this?”

  
“Because we don’t _ know, _ but it’s possible, and that’s ten times better than what other people are doing on the street,” Kara hissed at her. “Think about it. Other people are parading every green-eyed, raven-haired girl with passable acting skills just so they can weasel their way to fortune. But she— there’s this part of me. I don’t know. It could be _ her _and I’d rather go through hell and find out she wasn’t than let her get away again.”

Alex knew she was being genuine. Plus, Kara couldn’t help but pout, widening her eyes and clasping her hands. “I just don’t want you getting hurt,” Alex finally said, her features softening. Someone was approaching them, clear by the clacks resounding through the empty ballroom. “Kara, you have a heart bigger than anyone else’s. I know— _ I know _she meant a lot to you. But if we drag her along, and spend time with her, and we find out she’s nothing like Lena—”

  
“And then I’ll let this go.” Kara’s eyes were set in determination. Her nails dug painfully at her side. “Kieran will be something we laugh about over drinks, and I’ll get over it. Just trust me, please.”

  
“Do you really think I could be— that girl?” Kieran asked. The sisters turned their attention over to her. She had Streaky in her arms again, petting him softly on the head while he squinted. 

  
Kara smiled gently at her. “Well, you have Lionel’s eyes.”

  
Catching her drift, Alex continued on for her, walking closer to Kieran with a suspecting eye. “Lillian’s grace and posture.”

  
“Lex’s strong jaw.”

  
Alex picked up her limp hand. She grinned the same Kara was. “Jesus, Kieran, you even have her mother’s hands.” Then she made eye contact with her sister. With a slight nod that was barely noticeable, Alex added, “_Your _mother’s.”

  
Kieran was smiling. Her brilliant green eyes danced impishly. “Call me Lena.” Then she pursed her lips for a moment and spoke again. “I still don’t know about this. It’s hard to imagine being royalty when you’ve slept on the damp floor for as long as you can remember.”

  
“Eh, things happen,” Alex said with a shrug. “Besides, in Latin, your name means ‘she that allures’. We’ll bring you to Metropolis and I have no doubt you’ll be doing just that with everyone else.”

  
“In Persian it means ‘pretty girl’,” Kara added helpfully. She tried not to meet Kieran’s odd look.

  
“Flattery isn’t getting us anywhere, Kara,” she said with a little quirk of the lips. “But… thank you. The both of you. Even if I don’t turn out to be this girl and the Empress knows, it’ll just be an honest mistake, right?”

“An honest mistake. For sure,” Alex said, echoing her words with a reluctant nod. 

Kara was by her side in a split second. Teasingly, she took the hand Alex was briefly holding up and held it close to her lips. Knuckles brushed wistfully over them and she resisted the urge to press her lips closer, to press a much more insistent kiss. She looked up at Kieran’s— _ Lena’s, _her mind suggested— gorgeous sea of green. 

  
“It’s an honor to meet you, Grand Duchess Lena.” She said it with an obvious tease to her tone. A banter to get Kieran out of her shell. Yet she couldn’t help but feel the small embers starting in the low pits of her stomach.

* * *

“Can you stop fiddling with the necklace?” Kara complained. “The shine keeps getting in my eyes. And maybe sit up straighter, you’re a Grand Duchess.”

Beside her, Lena snorted. That morning, Kara had made it her job to exclusively call her Lena. _ Lena, Lena, Lena. _It gives her no excuse to separate the two if she did. All her chips were in the pile now. “How do you know what Grand Duchesses can and can’t do? Your Highness?”

Kara bit her tongue in retort. Beside her, Alex laughed. “That’s another one for Kieran,” she said in amusement, marking something down in her journal. Meanwhile, Alex hadn’t even tried to hide the fact that she thought Kieran and Lena were two split characters. She made a point in it by sticking _Kieran Doe _on her forged passport. As much as the Danvers' didn't like forgery and deception, being back-saddled by a potential lost princess motivated them to speed the process of forging identity cards. 

Across the small train compartment, Lena was still fiddling with her necklace, petting her new cat friend in her lap. Maybe it was Kara’s tired eyes, but she thought that Lena was _ purposely _shining the gem in her eyes. “Look, Lena, I’m just trying to help you,” she said as genuinely as she could. 

“Kara,” Lena said in her sultry voice.

  
Kara tried not to make it seem obvious that her heart jumped in her throat. “Yeah?”

  
“You stopped calling me Kieran. Do you really that much faith in me?”

  
“You know I do.”

  
Lena’s eyebrows shot up. “Then stop complaining.” 

Kara slumped farther into her seat, arms crossed over her chest. Again, Alex laughed. Only this time, Lena joined her. The force of her sibling and her newest friend ganging up against her made her neck feel prickly with heat. 

“This one’s feisty,” Alex teased.

  
“Usually something I find attractive in women,” Kara said in exasperation. “Actually, a lot of things about women are attractive. But somehow Lena is doing the opposite for me.”

  
“Thank you, Kara. I feel the same way,” she answered with a smug look.

  
Kara stuck her tongue out. Lena looked back at her with a wrinkled nose.

  
“Settle down, children,” Alex joked. “We’ve barely left National City and I don’t want to be in a cart while you two bicker like a married couple the whole four hours.”

  
Both parties piped up over one another.

“We aren’t bickering—”

  
“She was shining it in my eyes! I was just _ asking _—”

“And you kept telling me what to do. How am I supposed to take that? Do you want me to tell you what to do?”

  
“No, but—”

  
“Then why are you such a—”

  
“Kara! Kieran!” Alex yelled over them. Their voices hushed. “Huh. Kara and Kieran. Anyway,” she mused, sitting up in her seat, “You need to relax, both of you. What good is it going to do if you’re fighting the entire time?”

At their silence, Alex sat back in victory. “Exactly. Now, find something to do, please? Something that doesn’t make me have a headache for taking care of two kids instead of one?”

  
“Hey!” Kara argued. When Alex elbowed her stomach, she added, “Fine, fine. Whatever you say, Mom.”

  
Alex rolled her eyes and opened her journal again, writing furiously with a pen. There was a silence that fell over their cart. The sounds of the train chugging over the uneven railroad tracks was somehow calming to Kara. She rested the side of her head on the window, not minding the way it jostled her entire body. 

Alex gave her a quick squeeze of the hand before slipping out, her passport and journal clutched tightly to her chest. “Just gonna find some refreshments,” she explained.

  
It left Lena and Kara in silence. Streaky slept quietly in Lena’s lap. Without Alex’s presence, their cart felt more… strained. Alex wasn’t there to be their buffer, after all.

“You didn’t bring anything to do?” Lena spoke up. When Kara flitted her eyes over to her, she saw a thick book opened in her hands. An eyebrow was arched back at Kara.

“I’m a heavy sleeper,” Kara told her with a smile. “I was just thinking about going to sleep. Or looking out at the valley.”

  
Lena was quiet for a moment. She was looking at Kara, eyes grazing her every feature. Then Kara sighed, popping a joint back into place in her arm. She sat up straighter and looked over at Lena apologetically. “I’m not trying to come after you, if that’s what you think. I just got worried that someone was going to think you’re not… you know.”

“Why would it matter what they thought? You told me yourself that we just needed the Empress’ approval.”

  
Kara laughed nervously. She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, about that— since there’s a high demand in the ‘I found Lena Luthor’ department, the Empress needs approval to see you before she, well, comes and approves you. We’re going to Midvale first, to talk to this woman.” Her voice trailed off with every word.

Lena looked at her blankly. Then realizing what she was implying, she slowly said, “You want me to prove to some woman I don’t know that I’m _ Lena? _You do know that I don’t remember a single thing from before I was eight, right?” The panic set in her tone. “Hell, I don’t even know what Lena is like! If she’s me, apparently. What do I do, act like myself?”

  
“Yes, just— yeah, just be yourself,” Kara said soothingly. Lena was rubbing her arm almost furiously in an attempt to calm down. “We’ll have time to go over it when we arrive, okay? Alex has an entire book on the Luthors’ family tree, and—”

“You’re _ training _ me?” Lena sounded indignant. Kara tried not to flinch back at her tone. “Kara, I’m not going to— to learn how to be another person! That is the _ last _thing I want.”

  
“Lena, I hear you, and I get it,” Kara said as quietly as she could. “But put it this way. You have amnesia. If this really was your life, then it’s good to learn about it, right? It could even jog your memory.”

  
Lena was visibly deflating. She still regarded Kara with the same apprehensive look, but her furious look had disappeared. “Why are you so sure that I’m Lena, Kara?”

The question caught her off guard. She responded with a swollen tongue, her words coming out clumsy as a result of her haste to get it all out. “Because you look so much like her. And I know a lot of people look like her, like you— but there’s something about you that nobody else has.”

Lena was worrying her lip. “Have you met her before?”

Before Kara could respond, the door to their cart burst open. Alex shouldered herself inside, looking frantic and wild. “Both of you, move!” she said sharply, grabbing Kara by the shoulder to hoist her up.

“Alex, what’s wrong? What’s happening?” she asked in a flurry, trying to make sense of her sister’s actions. She steadied Alex by grabbing both sides of her shoulders, forcing them to lock eyes.

  
“There’s a man outside. Big tan coat, built like a goddamn gorilla. I heard him talking to some of the custodians about finding compartment seven.” Now Lena was up on her feet, unsure of how to proceed but holding Streaky close to her chest protectively. Alex ushered them both out, keeping her face in between theirs to whisper lowly. “Look natural. Don’t make eye contact. I don’t know what the hell this guy wants but he did _ not _look friendly.”

  
Despite her best efforts to do as Alex wished, Kara craned her neck backwards. There was a barrel-chested man, making their way towards them. When they made eye contact, he started shouldering past the other passengers rudely. 

Beside her, Lena took a sharp inhale, clearly following Alex’s rules as well as she was. Kara could’ve sworn she heard a small _ “Otis?” _come from her, but Alex grabbed one arm from each of them and dragged them out of the train cart.

They sped past the rest of the carts, every passenger blurring in Kara’s eyes. Some people were shouting after them, or making squeaky noises at finding three women torpedoing to the other end of the train.

When they reached the end, it was a locked room. Alex swore under her breath. “It’s locked,” she grumbled. “How are we—?”

  
“Move,” Lena said coolly. Without a word, Alex took a step aside and wordlessly took Streaky from her arms. Lena pulled a hair pin from her clipped bun and then bent down, toying with the lock. Every second ticked by with the sound of Kara’s heart pounding louder and louder. Eventually, the lock opened with the tiniest click and Lena managed to swing the door open. “Get in!”

  
They pushed each other inside, Alex closing the door with her heel after them. It didn’t feel like a beat had even passed before the door slammed loudly, creaking under the force of a large thing being tossed against it. They all stepped backwards.

Kara blinked to adjust to the room’s absence of light. Sat in the corner was a large furnace, glowing yellow and red while sparks flew above it in little showers. Coal was tumbling around the opened hatch. Next to the furnace was a handle.

  
“That’s an exit!” she told them, pointing straight to the nearly hidden door. She didn’t wait to grab them by the elbows, encouraged by the pounding of the door behind them.  
  
“It’s an exit, but this thing’s jammed.” Alex looked over at her with wide eyes. She was trying to get the black handle open, but it wouldn’t do anything besides stay still. 

Kara made a split second decision. She took hold of the lever herself, putting one hand on top of the other. And then she pushed down with all her body weight, causing it to groan and creak. Before she could celebrate, her exhilaration was over and she had to relax, panting hard at her aching muscles. 

“Shit. Kara.” Alex looked back at the door. The pounding hasn’t stopped, but the door was beginning to give out.

“I know, I know!” She gritted her teeth together, setting them straight in her jaw. Her eyes moved up to the window, watching the train whiz past green trees and snow. Her adrenaline high, she pulled back an elbow, and swung it hard at the window.

The glass shattered all over her face. She closed her eyes and took short breaths, then stuck her hand out of the door and swung it wildly near her hip. She found the stick blocking it on the other end and tapped it away. She could feel Lena’s eyes burning into the side of her head.

Without another word, Alex swung the exit open for them and pushed them roughly inside. It was another train cart, except the other end was empty. Just open space.

“We have to jump,” Alex told them grimly.

Kara turned to look at her, eyes wide with panic. “What?! _ Are you crazy_!”

“Kara, she’s right, we don’t have another choice!” Lena yelled. 

Blood pouring into her eardrums, Kara turned her neck over at her. She was being pulled closer to the edge by someone’s hands. She could hear the loud screeching of the railroads underneath them and felt the cold air of late winter. But she couldn’t focus on it. She was too busy focusing on Lena. Lena can’t jump at a speed like this without hurting something, Lena’s gonna break a bone, what if she died, or got a concussion, _ fuck, _what if—

  
Lena’s eyes met hers when they were inches away from the train’s edge. The sunlight made her eyes dance, the blues and greens blending together to form an archaic mix— a familiar look of concern. Solidarity. _ I got you, _they whispered to her.

She took hold of Lena’s hand, Alex on Lena’s right, and they jumped to the left, where the most massive snow pile laid. They jumped the same moment the door swung open with a painful thud, a man shouting after them in a language Kara couldn’t recognize.

Kara’s body instantly felt cold. Her head emerged from on top of the snow, but Alex pushed it down. The sound of a gunshot resounded in the distance.

She inhaled as much air her lungs were willing to take when she reemerged. She was panting hard, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead despite the cold around her. 

“Well,” she began, coughing away the snow that got in her mouth, “_that’s _ the last time I’m ever train-hopping.”

  
Lena looked around in a panic. Kara didn’t understand why until she called for Streaky, her voice hoarse with dread. “Streaky? Streaky, darling, where are you?”

Streaky popped up from the snow beside Alex. He meowed and hissed, then shook the snow out of his fur.

* * *

“My butt hurts,” Kara complained, rubbing her back side.

  
“Am I supposed to pity you? Keep walking,” Alex said with a snort. Lena laughed, though she winced and grabbed gently at her side.

  
The fall, in fact, caused a couple injuries. After the adrenaline had faded away, Kara could feel the bruises forming on her legs. Her left leg limped as she walked, but Alex assured her that it was only a strain that would be gone within a couple days. Kara, unfortunately, wasn’t listening to her at the time. She was fussing over Lena, checking her for every little injury she can. Thankfully, Lena had only sustained a stiff elbow.

  
“Are we hiking all the way to Midvale?” Lena asked them. She rubbed her sore elbow. Streaky napped peacefully in the little sack Alex fashioned out of her coat, swung over Lena’s shoulder.

  
“Thankfully, no. Kara has a friend we can visit and stay with for a while. It’s about two hours on foot,” Alex assured her. It was Kara who groaned at it, and Alex slapped her stomach playfully. “Oh, get over yourself.”

  
Nia, Kara knew, would gladly take them in. She was a kind soul, if not a little tenacious. She missed the tea Nia’s mother used to make for them, and the thought made Kara’s mouth salivate. Lena poked her side. 

_“Ow!”_ She looked over at Lena. “Why did you do that?”

  
“I felt like it.” Lena shrugged with a grin on her face. Her tight bun had shaken off due to their fall, making wisps of hair fall over her eyes and face. She made no move to brush them away and Kara, being none the wiser, wanted nothing more than to tuck them behind her ear for her. “So, are you going to quiz me on my apparent family or not?”

  
Alex shot her sister a glare. “You were supposed to bring it up lightly,” she accused.

  
Kara held her hands up. “I’m sorry! She was being pushy.”

  
“Oh, _ me_? Do I have to remind you that—?”

  
“Oh my God, not again,” Alex groaned. “I’d gladly choose reciting the entire Luthor bloodline for an entire hour over hearing you two dance around each other again.”

“We—” Kara argued.

“Okay, then let’s hear it.” Lena’s chin was held high again. The way she held herself was already naturally like a princess’, there was no doubt about it. “We got nothing better to do, right?”

  
“Right,” Alex said with a sigh through the nose. She pinched the bridge of her nose and walked slower to catch up with Lena’s pace. Lena was in between them now, walking stubbornly through the grass sidewalks of the train tracks. “Well, the Empress is Lillian Luthor. She’s… a persistent character.”

  
Kara snorted. “More like catty.”

“Kara,” Alex scolded. She turned back to look at Lena. “The Emperor, or King, was Lionel Luthor. He was a lot kinder than Lillian, but he died with the attack on his manor.”

  
“What?” Lena sounded confused.

  
“Kieran, you haven’t even _ heard _of it?” Alex looked shocked. 

“Was I… supposed to?”

The tip of Alex’s lip curled. “I guess not,” she decided. She cleared her throat and shoved her hands in her pockets, then said, “About ten years ago, the entire Luthor home was attacked by something. Nobody knows what happened, but there’s rumors that someone paid for the family’s hit. Their home went up in flames. Only Lillian survived, and some think that Lena— er, _ you, _by some miracle, are alive.”

  
“Well, I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” Lena said with a dry laugh. 

  
Alex chuckled. Kara noticed the way Lena looked away. A thoughtful look crossed her face and she couldn’t help but question it. “What are you thinking about, Lena?”

  
Lena looked up, a bit startled. “Oh, I was just thinking,” she said with a light stammer. She paused to look up at the birds flying away in the direction they were going towards. “This seems a little wrong to me. Like we’re conning the poor lady about seeing her daughter. Even with amnesia, feelings stay. When you talk about the Empress, I don’t feel… anything.”

  
“It could take time,” Alex said gently. Her words surprised Kara, who thought avidly that her sister wouldn’t budge with the notion of seeing Lena and Kieran as separate people. “Kara had a concussion from horseback riding with our dad a long time ago. It took her _ days _to stop yelling whenever he entered the same room as her,” she said with a laugh.

Kara hid her embarrassment with a meek smile. Lena laughed merrily at it, her posture more relaxed. It made her smile a bit more genuinely.

  
“Anyway,” Alex said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “that’s the royal couple. Or, royal parents, if you will. Lena Luthor also had a big brother named Lex.”

  
“Short for Alexei?”

  
Alex gave her a weird look. “No, Alexander. Alexei _ what_— what made you think _ that_?”

Lena hummed. “I mean, I know how to speak Russian. And I figured that maybe my family was Russian too.”

  
“The Luthors aren’t even close to being Russian,” Alex said, baffled.

  
Kara made an _ eh _noise and wrung out her hand. “Well, actually, the Luthors learned Russian and Russia’s culture because they were kinda… affiliated, I guess?”

  
“Hah! See?” Lena stuck out her tongue, a heartwarming quirk that Kara had no doubt she picked up from her in the train. Alex made a face, glancing back at Kara with raised eyebrows. 

  
“So you can speak conversational Russian or something?” Alex asked her. “So what, are you like a spy now or something?” She chuckled at her own joke.

Lena quirked an eyebrow at her. "ты угрожаешь мне, что ли?"

The words made Alex and Kara glance at each other, looking both impressed and freaked out at the same time. It made Lena burst out laughing. “Okay, sorry, what were you saying about Lex?” she said teasingly.

  
Clearing her throat to mask her awkwardness, Alex started up again. “Let’s forget about the family branch for a moment. I was thinking I could teach you how to act like Lena first.”

“I am Lena,” she said bluntly, only to grin mischievously when Alex rolled her eyes. 

“What she’s saying is—” Kara grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back, much to Streaky’s displeasure, “We’re gonna show you how to do it. Because if _ we _know how to do it, you can learn to do it.”

  
For the next hour, they spent it laughing and quarreling with each other about Kara and Alex’s methods. First, they put a twig in her hair and made her balance along the train tracks, to which Lena almost outright refused. Kara helped her ease into it by telling her stories about the past, when Lena would run into the kitchen and terrorize the family’s cook by dropping crickets she found in the backyard into the pot. How Lena would only stop laughing and running down the halls with her brother when her mother gave her 'the look'.

By Kara’s third anecdote, Lena was almost rolling against a tree with laughter, tears in her eyes as she kept saying, “Wait, did I really? I really did that?”

For a while, Kara left behind every doubt that whispered to her that Kieran wasn’t Lena. When she smiled like that, when her eyes lit up with a kindle that popped out the green in them— it felt incredible. Like she was a kid again, taking Lena by the hand and showing her a shortcut to the kitchen for whenever she felt hungry. 

  
They found a bridge not too far from Nia’s house. There, two horses will pulling a hay cart while a dozing man sat at the cart’s front. They climbed into the back with giggles, drinking the tea with the teacups left out in the back. Streaky curled up Alex's lap and went back to sleep.

  
“Don’t slurp so loud,” Kara said with a laugh, flicking her teaspoon at Lena. It caused little streaks of tea to splash against her face, which made Lena laugh loudly. How the carrier still dozed through it all, she didn’t know. “Tuck your elbows in. People are going to think you can’t drink tea for the life of you.”

  
“I never really cared for tea, anywho,” Lena said with a sniff, her voice a very exaggerated mockery of the first class.

  
It made them all laugh again. “She said that like a Luthor,” Alex said in amusement, jamming a thumb in Lena’s direction whilst leaning in towards her sister.

  
And then they told her about all the crazy rules of the royalty. How much caviar you need on your plate, the difference between five different kinds of soups, how you hold utensils, the way you need to intricately fold the napkin that would be placed on your lap— the sisters hurled rule after rule at Lena, but she kept nodding in understanding.

Thinking that she was tuning them out, Kara would ask her quick questions about what she was just talking about. In response, Lena would answer them in a flash, almost word for word as Kara told her. She even answered a question that Kara was more than sure they never quizzed her on. 

Each minute they spent together, the hope bubbled more and more in Kara’s chest. 

Alex caught her look once, when Lena was trying to balance a large twig on her head. She pulled Kara aside and told her, as gently as a big sister could, “We still don’t know. I don’t want you getting your hopes so high up that it crushes you when it comes down.”

And she agreed. As much as Lena looked at her like that, as much as Lena loved smiling at her jokes— she wasn’t sure if it was _ her _Lena, not entirely. 

They took a break near the side of a deserted road. Streaky bounced off into the distance, though Kara knew better than to go after him. He was a wild soul, constantly moving around and bringing her the oddest things. Meanwhile, Lena sat next to her, rubbing her sore feet. “How far are we?” she asked the sisters, crossing her legs under her. 

“Three more miles on foot,” Alex answered. She was stretching, joints popping back into place.

“You said that fifteen miles ago,” Kara said with a groan. She laid down on the grass with her arms spread out, elbow tucked underneath her head for support. Lena looked over at her, and Kara wanted to tell her how wonderfully _ green _her eyes were compared to the grass.

  
“She’s your friend. You’re the one who should be navigating better,” Alex scolded. 

_“You’re the one who should be navigating better,”_ Kara mocked. Alex narrowed her eyes at her.

  
Not wanting to deal with sisterly arguments, Lena got involved. “Is there something else I need to know before going to Mercy’s?” she asked the pair, a fistful of grass in her hand to let them fall to the ground like gliding sprinkles. 

“Not that I know of,” Kara answered, almost the same time as Alex said, “Well, you need to learn how to dance.”

Two pairs of eyes flicked over to her. Alex shrugged at them. “Dancing?” Lena mused. She stretched out a leg in front of her, the flat of her shoe nearly touching Kara’s knee. “Why do I need to know that?”

  
“Well, every good princess needs to learn how to dance, for one thing,” Alex said thoughtfully. “And secondly, if you really were Princess Lena, you’d need to dance through _ dozens _of people during the gala.”

  
“Oh! Right, the gala.” Kara sat up, hands underneath her to support her weight. She looked over at Lena, who looked reasonably lost. “Your mother wants to show you off for the first gala in ten years. It’s one of the reasons why she’s looking for you,” she answered for Lena, who nodded in understanding. She didn’t mention the horrible rumors that came up with it, rumors that whispered through the city about Lena being handed off to a man that had the most high graces towards the Empress. Kara tried to block it out.

  
“So, show me how to dance,” Lena said. She was looking right at Kara.

  
“Wh— me?” Kara stammered, pointing at her chest. “Oh, no. I don’t know how to dance. Alex does.”

  
Alex looked unbearably amused. She tried to take a step forward before stopping to wince, rubbing the sore spot on her thigh. “Kara recovers faster with injuries way better than I can,” she began, eyes flipping between her and Lena, “I can coach you both. I think Kara needs the practice way more than you do, Kieran.”

  
“Hey!” Kara protested, and Lena giggled under the hand over her mouth. The fluttering in her stomach felt warm at the sound, soothing her the same way the tinkling of wind chimes did.

  
They were up on their feet in a moment. Alex instructed them on how to hold each other, before shoving her sister towards Lena even closer with a laugh. Kara shot her a dirty look, though it was quickly wiped off her face when Lena tugged her backwards to waltz in a little box. Their steps were erratic and off-beat. Kara kept nervously shifting her eyes downwards, afraid that she would accidentally step on Lena’s toes.

  
“Kieran.” Alex was laughing with her words. “Let her lead. You’re the follow.”

  
With a tilted chin upwards, Lena relaxed in her grip. Kara smiled apologetically, then took a step forward. They moved almost languidly, much slower and steadier than their steps before. Lena’s shoulders slumped. To help them get on beat, Alex was mumbling “One, two, three, one, two, three,” under her breath. 

  
Lena’s eyes were blazing in hers. It caught a lodge in her throat, and Kara swallowed it down as best as she could. Lena’s hair, tied back up during their hike, was falling over her face again. Her rugged coat was much too big on her, but Kara could feel her strong hips underneath her hand. Kara spun them around slowly, right on the beat.

  
“I think you’d look really pretty in a dress,” she blurted out.

  
When Lena sent her an arched eyebrow instead of judgmental words, she kept going, not being able to stop the blabber coming from her mouth. “I— I mean, not that you aren’t… pretty already. I just think you’d look good in clothes.”

  
“I am wearing clothes.” Lena sounded entertained.

“I mean a dress! A dress.” Kara’s tongue was in a tight knot. “You’d look… really nice, in— in a dress. And you’re already so beautiful, so I think…”

“You really think so?” Lena’s voice was suddenly softer. Kinder, if not a little nervous.

  
“Oh, absolutely,” she automatically said. Kara would never lie to her. She nodded her head vigorously, which caused Lena to laugh. “They look good on a hanger, but I think it would look— amazing, on you.” She cleared her throat, ignoring the sudden heat pressed neatly on her face despite the wind. In fact, the wind caused Lena’s hair to blow sideways, some of it sticking to the glossiness of her lips, and Kara’s heart lodged itself firmly against her rib cage.

  
“I’m— I’m just trying to give you, uh…” she tried again, but her words kept getting stuck in her throat.

  
“A compliment?” Lena supplied, smiling wider when Kara nodded again. Her words were gentle, amused but almost touched with Kara’s behavior.

  
  
It made Kara relax. “Definitely, yeah,” Kara mumbled. Lena laughed at it, which quickly made her smile. The tickling in her chest started again at the lovely sight, never taking her gaze off the way Lena’s lips stretched, or how Lena’s eyes glistened in the late afternoon glow, or how wonderfully amazing it was to twirl her around with soft breeze encouraging the spin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara could see Alex watching them, leaning against a boulder. There was a faint smile on her face.

They arrived at Nia’s house half an hour before dusk. Nia’s sister opened the door to them with wide eyes, taking in their messy look and the ragged clothes sticking to their backs. Kara smiled warily at her in greeting. “Nia!” she called back into the house. “Your hobo friends are here!”

* * *

They slept in one bedroom that night. Nia’s mother apologized to them about the cramped space. Kara kept insisting that it was even better than they could imagine. Nia gave them as many blankets and pillows as they pleased, handing them some tea and bread to stave off their hunger. Alex and Kara shared the bunk bed. Like the pushover big sister she was, she let Kara take the top bunk after wrestling and begging for it. Lena watched their situation in the corner with an amused look, Streaky already curled up on the foot of her bed.

Once they were settled in, Kara fell asleep in a matter of seconds.

Confused, and frankly entertained by it, Alex caught her looking. “She’s a loud snorer, before you ask,” she said with a grimace. “It’s funny for the first couple of seconds and then it’s over.”

  
Lena laughed lowly under her breath. She said a whispered goodnight to the older Danvers, then blew out the lantern next to her. Plunged in darkness and oddly soothed by Kara’s loud snores, she went to sleep.

In her dreams, she dreamt of a long hallway. It stretched on for so long that she had to squint her eyes to see the other end. It was too dark for her to see, and she took a tentative step forward. Right then, her entire body jerked, and her nose was nearly touching the face of an older man. His eyes were rabid, his bald head shining in the light of the windows. It made her giggle, but the man shook her shoulders wildly.

“Lena, you have to get out of here,” he shouted at her face. “Go to your room, open the window and run, they’re—”

  
She blinked once and she was somewhere else. She was crouching under a small table, small hands clutching a teddy bear that was half her size. Something thumped against the wall, over and over. It made her unreasonably scared, so scared that she began to cry softly.

Then a warm hand took her wrist, pulled her out from under the table, and gave her a tight hug. “You’re okay,” breathed a voice. It was small, like it belonged to a young child. But it was so croaky, like she had just recently stopped crying. “There’s an exit right here. Look, just—”

The door rattled and burst open, and with a shout she was pushed in the other direction. In a moment she was enveloped in darkness. Not knowing what to do, she turned around and felt a wall, easing it open. A blonde girl was cowering in the corner, holding a small vase in her hand and raising it towards a large man. 

“Where is she?” the man urged. 

“I’m not telling you!” shouted the girl. She sounded defiant. Standing her ground, no matter what.

The man swung the hilt of a knife against the girl’s forehead and she crumpled, much like a puppet without strings, to the ground. The scream in Lena’s throat was so hoarse that she could feel it when her world lurched.

Arms gripped tightly around her waist, pulling her back and making her heels drag along something soft and gritty. Grass. 

Lena blinked, feeling hiccups in her chest. She reached a hand over her face and felt something wet. She dragged her palms over her face furiously, surprised at how many tears had managed to stain her cheeks. It made her palms wet.

“Lena!” Kara said in a rush, her voice sounding between relief and fright. “Don’t— don’t _ do that. _ You almost scared me to death.”

Lena looked around, her blurry vision turning much more stable. They were outside in the Nals’ garden, the stars and moon shining above them like beacons in the dark. Crickets chirped quietly. In front of her was the small pond that the family kept here. It was about as deep as a regular person.

She gulped and turned around to face Kara. Kara’s arms had left her waist already. Now Lena's hands were pressed against her own biceps, her arms crossed so tight that it made her body shake. The panic in Kara's eyes made a sob rise from Lena’s chest.

It escaped her lips in a quiet whimper. When Kara reached over and wrapped her in a hug, she couldn’t help but cry louder, the sobs erupting from her chest in violent bursts. It made her head ache with the strength of it, her shoulders shaking forcibly against Kara’s torso.

Kara carded her fingers through Lena’s hair. She was making soothing noises, crooning at her to calm down. “It’s okay,” she said quietly, fingers combing over her scalp, “it was just a dream. It’s not real. You’re safe. I got you.”

  
_ It felt so real, _ she wanted to argue. Her sobs made it too hard for her to talk, to hard to get anything out besides a blubbered sound and hiccups. _ It felt too real. _

“Can I tell you something?” she finally said, her voice throaty and itchy. She looked up to look at Kara.

  
“Anything.”

  
“When I was— for the past few days,” she sobbed. She took a shaky breath in and Kara combed her hair soothingly. “I keep dreaming about things I _ almost _remember. But I can’t. Whenever I try, it won’t come back to me. Someone used to love me, Kara. They— they used to hold me, and sing to me, and—”

Kara hushed her with a gentle kiss on the head. She let Lena weep on her shirt, pursing her lips quietly. “A lot of people love you, Lena,” she said, her voice coated with the warmth of honey. “I bet they still do.”

* * *

They left the next morning. They ate breakfast before leaving, much to the family’s insistence, and had a hearty meal that left Lena feeling stuffed. 

  
“I hope you don’t barf on my clothes,” Kara teased her. 

“I’ll do it if I please, Kara,” she teased right back. She didn’t want to seem too relieved at the fact that Kara made no mention of last night. She never looked at Lena differently, or actively avoided her eyes. It was like nothing happened. And she was extremely glad.

  
They made way on a horse carriage to Mercy Graves. It was Lillian’s favourite friend, a woman with a bite and a no nonsense attitude. “You can’t get to Lillian without getting to her,” Alex reminded them. “She passes the knowledge on to Lillian and then you’re allowed to see the Empress whenever you’d like.”

  
“How come you know so much about the process of handing off Lenas to her mother, Alex?” Lena questioned. 

Alex shrugged at her. “I used to hang out with a lot of con artists.” When even Kara looked at her with a shocked look, she clarified herself. “_Used to. _As in, not anymore. I’m… actually trying to get into the police academy,” she admitted, lowering her eyes. 

  
It suddenly clicked for Lena. She took a glance between the two sisters. “You’re going to Metropolis to train as a police officer,” she stated, arching her left eyebrow. There was only one police academy in the entire state, and it was there. “But you, I can’t figure out,” she added, looking towards Kara.

Kara furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Why are you going to Metropolis?”

  
“To bring you to your rightful place, your Highness,” she said with a drawl.

  
When Lena gave her a pointed look, she grinned in apology. “I’m going to visit a cousin. And, if everything goes right, maybe get a job. I can’t exactly live off the way I was.”

Lena hummed in satisfaction. They left Streaky with Nia as a favor, in case something went wrong with their little trip again. They were mostly quiet on the way there. Lena sat there, twiddling her thumbs, while the sisters looked over the horizon and commented on certain things they saw. Sometimes, Lena would catch Kara’s eyes, and they’d look away with twitching lips and slightly flushed cheeks. 

  
Kara was a peculiar person. She didn’t even mean it in the odd sense— just, interesting. She was leaner than most people she met. At the orphanage, most of the kids were small and frail from the lack of food. Kara was lean where they were not, brawny where most kids would need to puff out to show off. Sometimes Lena would stare, mostly out of curiosity, she told herself, because her arms looked like they were made out of _ steel. _

She caught herself thinking about Kara’s arms around her at some point. How easily they dragged her away. It made her flush with embarrassment, but also quite puzzled, because surely a impoverish girl such as Kara wouldn’t have this much muscle?

Her answer came when they let the horses stop to breathe. Their coachman fed a couple sugar cubes to them, suggesting the girls in the back to stretch while they waited. Kara hopped off without a second to spare, stretching out her back from side to side and arms reached over her head. Her shirt rode up, flashing Lena a slit of skin. It was extremely lean.

  
Alex caught her staring and good-naturedly punched her bicep. She chuckled when Lena yelped. “She worked in a factory carrying a bunch of stuff for a while,” she explained. 

“Oh. I see,” she said as evenly as she could. Alex smiled at her and went back into the carriage, chatting with the coachman. Meanwhile, Lena could feel eyes staring into the back of her head. She turned around and caught Kara’s eyes, who smiled happily at her.

“Hey,” she began, walking straight over to Lena. Her little smile made Lena strangely happy. “Do you wanna take a walk? There’s a gazebo near here. It's just a couple minutes on foot.”

She could see the protest in Lena’s face before she even opened her mouth. “Horses take a while to recover,” she said quickly. “Trust me. My friend, James, he was a coachman for a while. Plus if you hang out too long with the horses, all you’ll be smelling for the rest of the week is horse shit.”

Lena couldn’t help but snort at that. They told Alex they were walking over to the nearby gazebo, and she gave them their blessing in the form of a thumbs up. When her eyes glided over to Lena’s, there was a knowing glint in them. It made her too conscious of how close Kara was sticking by her. If she reached her arm over a half inch, their knuckles would knock together.

She tried not to think about it for too long. Instead, she focused on the birds that chirped at them. The sun was still high in the air, though the wind helped move sweat away from the nape of her neck. Kara chatted pleasantly with her about stories of the Luthors. It used to make Lena happy, as if those stories genuinely helped fill in the gaps in her head. 

  
Right now, she couldn’t stop chewing on her lip. “Can you tell me something else?” she finally spoke.

Kara stopped talking, glancing over at her in slight worry. “Sorry. Too much?” she said with a little laugh.

“No, it’s not that,” Lena assured her. She didn’t know what to do with her hands so she started fiddling with her nails. “I love hearing about the royal family. But you haven’t really talked about… yours. If that’s okay?”

  
Kara was quiet for a long while. It worried her, so she added, “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. I just wanted to learn new things about you.”

There was a soft smile on Kara’s face. All that Lena wanted to do was stare at it forever. Not the green hills, not the vibrant-colored birds. Kara. “I wasn’t expecting to hear that,” she admitted. “But, yeah. Of course.”

She started talking animatedly about her life. How she really wasn’t Alex’s biological sister, but an adopted one, after both of her parents were killed in a freak accident at their place of work. She jokingly told Lena that it bonded them, which Lena returned with squeezing her hand. It made Kara pause for a moment, a soft blush on her face, before she started talking again, much faster than the last.

  
Her cousin, Clark, lived in Metropolis with a wonderful wife. He offered to take her in if she ever came. She told her about how amazing he was, that he was basically a hero. He was a police officer that also encouraged Alex to pursue her career, with an arrest streak higher unparalleled by anyone’s in the country. 

  
Before they knew it, they were at the gazebo, resting their elbows over the railing and leaning close to the glistening green water below them. A mother duck passed with her ducklings, and some fish wriggled visibly in the water. But neither of them were looking down, or up, or anywhere else that wasn’t their faces. Their forearms were nearly touching from the proximity of it.

  
After Kara had spilled out her entire life to her, she paused, then glanced out onto the lake. Her animated eyes and excited chatter faded away. Not to sadness, but to a soft, serene look. Kara closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back at Lena, whose breath had rattled out of her chest. 

“You’re really pretty,” Kara told her softly. 

It made her neck and cheeks flush with the comment. Kara laughed quietly at the way she responded. “You’re a flirt, Kara Danvers,” Lena accused. 

  
Kara only grinned. “Surprisingly not true. I was just telling you what was on mind.” Lena finally noticed the settled blush on her cheeks. It painted her cheeks and nose a rosy color, and the orange sun filtered it out to look like peaches. It suited Kara. It really did.

  
“If I’m pretty, then you’re a marble sculpture,” she murmured, just as softly as Kara had been. It made Kara’s smile twitch, and she looked away as to avoid Lena’s eyes. She laughed, placing a hesitant hand over Kara’s forearm, which had her long sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Kara looked down at it, smiling a bit wide, and it encouraged Lena to squeeze. It was hard and firm, but the warmth underneath seeped into her own skin.

“What are you going to do when it’s not you?” Kara said. Her tone was somber, like she was asking when Lena was going to leave. It made her squeeze a bit harder. Her fingertips glided over Kara’s arm, stroking it soothingly. It seemed to work because Kara relaxed, and in a careful movement, put her hand on top of Lena’s. 

Lena thought about her question. “What are _ you _going to do?” she asked right back.

  
“Answering my question with a question doesn’t help anyone.” Kara laughed, then visibly gulped something down. Lena could tell it left a bitter taste in her mouth. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I told Alex that we’d move on. Maybe, um, come see you once in a while. Have some drinks with you. Talk about this like it was nothing.”

“You know you don’t have to lie to me.” There was no bitterness to her tone. She was genuine, down to her very core. Because she heard Kara the first night they met, when she was speaking to her sister in hushed tones, about moving on from this like they have never met. She wasn’t angry. At the time, she found it amusing. But right now, it left a hollow chamber in her chest. 

Kara looked over at her, eyebrows bunched together and her lower lip pulled out a little more than her top. She looked like a puppy, Lena mused, and she would’ve found it funny if it didn’t bury the hole deeper in her heart. “Lena, I don’t— I don’t know,” she said shakily. The hand over hers was shaking. It swept over her knuckles in slow sweeps, rubbing the back of her thumb. She didn’t know if the action was meant to soothe her, or Kara. 

“It’s Kieran,” she said gently. “At least, for now—”

“No.” The determination made her blink. “No, I—” Kara laughed, though it fell flat on both of them. “You’re gonna call me crazy. But I just have this, this _ feeling _about you. That you’re you. It has to be.”

Lena shrugged. Because she had that feeling too, that the story added up, that Lena felt much more easier on the tongue than Kieran. That years of being shouted by her “mother” at the orphanage by the name was, and should, be forgotten. But God, she couldn’t bare to see Kara devastated over this if it was all wrong. 

  
“You sounded so confident with Alex before that you could leave me behind,” she said gently. Again, no bite. But it made Kara visibly flinch. “Why are you hesitating about it now?” It was a question she had ever since they got to the gazebo.

  
When Kara’s eyes jumped back up to her, staring into hers like that, Lena had never felt the urge to kiss her now more than ever. They were so soft in the glow of the sun, blue eyes that radiated kindness and confidence ever since they met. She only spoke five words, but it was enough to drag the breath out of Lena’s lungs. 

“I think I love you.”

“You don’t mean that,” she argued weakly. It's only been days. But like a string pulling at her hand, she placed one tentatively over Kara’s cheek. Kara leaned into it, eyes never leaving hers. 

“I do,” she insisted. Both of Kara’s hands were holding her other hand now, fingers curled warmly over her palm. “Did I ever tell you that when we were kids, I had this _ hopeless, _hopeless crush on you?” 

When Lena didn’t speak, she continued to blabber on, word after word, her eyes filled with a sorrow that made Lena want to cry out for her. “I would sneak out of the kitchen just to see you dance. I fought the kids who tried to pick on you. Sometimes, you’d cry on my shoulder because your mom yelled at you or Lex refused to take you somewhere. When you laugh, like _ really _laugh, you’d throw your head back and I’d see this mole on your neck and I would always want to touch it or kiss it, because—”

  
“Kara.” Lena felt her throat close up. She gulped it down. “You’re not talking to me.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I am.”

  
“No, you’re talking to Lena.” Her tone was suddenly fierce. “We don’t know. We don’t know if it’s me. Kara, I like you, I really do, but you like me because you think I’m someone else.”

  
“No,” she said, just as fiercely as Lena. “You’re wrong. I know it’s you. Even if it’s not, then who _ cares_? I just want you, I don’t care who you are now.” As much as Lena wanted to believe it, she could hear the desperation in Kara’s tone. The remorse and the pain of a fault she couldn’t fathom Kara could ever cause.

  
“Don’t make this so hard on yourself.”_Don't make this so hard on me, _whispered the selfish part of herself. “Please?”

  
Her eyes held Kara’s for a long moment. Like they were trying to say something to each other without speaking a word. Slowly, Kara brought a hand up to the one on her cheek, and she brought up to her lips. She kissed the middle of Lena’s palm, then closed her eyes. Lena breathed out slowly, willing it to keep steady.

  
With her face so calm and relaxed, Lena could finally see a small scar between Kara’s eyebrows. It was faded with age, though the indent was clear. It wasn’t deep, nor large in diameter, but it was distinct enough that Lena couldn’t help but reach other and brush a thumb over it with a gentle caress, afraid that it would somehow still hurt Kara.

Kara’s eyes fluttered open in surprise, then watched her intently when Lena didn’t pay any mind. She could feel the bump, a bizarre looking thing, and the puzzle pieces in her brain were beginning to jumble around.

  
“What happened?” she asked gently, her words a hush to the winds around them.

  
Kara swallowed, her jaw clenching and relaxing over and over. When she answered, her voice was meek, nothing at all like the raucous laughter she shared with her sister throughout the day. “Someone hit me over the head a long time ago.”

“What for?” The festering in her stomach was starting up again.

It felt like a long time before Kara finally answered. “I don’t really remember.” But her eyes shifted away from hers. Her hand dropped away from Kara’s face.

* * *

Mercy Graves’ house was a quaint little thing. It was more like a man cave than anything else. She offered them scotch and wine, a large contrast to the warm tea Nia’s mother had given them just the day before. Alex and Kara refused outright, but Lena asked for a small glass of scotch. Mercy gave her a wink before setting off to get her drink, declaring that she already liked Lena.

Eventually, the sisters gave in and were served some alcohol as well. Mercy sat down in front of Lena while Alex and Kara paced around her. Mercy didn’t seem to mind. “So, what an in-character way to introduce yourself, Lena,” she purred, the name sounding more like a mockery.

“Because that’s her name,” Kara piped up. Her elbow was propped over the edge of a fireplace, swirling wine in a cup.

  
“Let the girl speak for herself, will you, dear?” Mercy said, sickeningly sweet. Kara shut her mouth.

  
Clearing her throat, Mercy brushed off her pants and sat closer to the edge of her seat. Lena bit on the inside of her cheek, taking a sip of her scotch to pretend she wasn’t shaking with nerves. “What’s your _ real _name?” she inquired.

  
“When I arrived at the orphanage, I blurted out to them that my name was Kieran,” she admitted. She could feel Alex sighing behind her, more agitated than the other two. 

  
“Kieran?” Mercy’s eyebrows were peaked high. She took a sip of her drink, and then calmly stretched over her armchair. “That’s Lena’s middle name. Maiden name, actually, of her mother’s. Not many people know that.”

  
Lena didn’t know that. Neither did Alex or Kara it seemed, because they stopped pacing. “Oh,” she said awkwardly.

Mercy laughed merrily, sounding more practiced than genuine. “Where are you from, Lena?”

  
It was a simple enough question. One that she could answer truthfully. “From an orphanage in National City. I was eight when they took me in, and I had amnesia for the longest time since then. I saw Mother talking about finding me from the newspapers.”

“Which is why it took you so long to come out of the shadows.” It was a statement. Mercy seemed genuinely impressed. “Who’s your Mother’s brother?”

  
The real drilled questions finally began. Lena answered them all with flying colors, almost mechanically. At one point, Mercy asked a question about Lex’s favorite past time, something that Alex and Kara hadn’t gone over her with. But she answered it, without a beat to spare, and the pair looked at each other with inquisitive eyes from her peripheral vision. 

Finally, at the end, Mercy took the last sip of her drink, an unreadable expression on her face. She swirled the remnants of the alcohol in the glass, before getting up and setting her drink down on a silver platter. “Well, you answered all of my questions and passed all of them,” she told the group. 

Alex and Kara sighed in relief. Alex squeezed her sister’s shoulder lovingly, and Lena nearly melted into the armchair from the stress.

“But,” Mercy called from the kitchen. She came back, poised as ever. “I want you to answer a question. Just to humor me.”

“Oh. Of course,” Lena said, pushing herself closer to the edge of her seat. She glanced over to Alex, who smiled encouragingly at her. Kara smiled too, but her lips were twitchy and wobbly. “What is it?”

  
“How did you escape?” Mercy pressed.

The sisters stiffened. Alex slumped against the wall, biting the callus of her thumb. Kara’s entire face fell and she marched over to the fireplace, slumping over it and burying her face in her hands. Lena felt her hands shake, and she tried to hide them by wringing them together on her lap.

_ How did you escape? _She replayed the words over and over in her head until it became a mantra. Mercy didn’t rush her, or made no reason to believe she was. She only sat there, languid on her chair, and waited without speaking a word. Lena bit her lip.

Then it came to her, in little floating shreds. She pieced them together one by one, feeling her heart thump painfully at her chest when she came close to a revelation. Her brain buzzed hard with the push to think harder. There was a hallway. A table. A teddy bear and a necklace cold on her sternum. The memory made her twitch, and she brought a finger up to her lips to steady them. 

  
“There was… a girl,” she finally answered, her voice far away. “A girl who worked there. She opened a wall, and pushed me inside… then…” She cleared her throat, her mind seizing up to the current situation. She smiled apologetically at Mercy, who was looking back at her with her lips pressed in a thin line. “Sorry. That sounds crazy,” she said with a laugh. “Walls opening.”

The door to Mercy’s house opened with a loud rattle. Then there was a slam that almost made Lena jump from where she sat. Kara wasn’t anywhere she could see.

Alex made no mention of it, but her lips were drawn together in a way that meant she was thinking heavily. “So, is she a Luthor?” Alex asked reluctantly.

Mercy shrugged, a smirk playing on her lips. “She answered every question correctly. So I’d assume so, for the sake of her poor old Mother.” 

Alex cried out, holding her arms to hug Lena, who jumped to her feet in excitement. “Did you hear that?” Alex said, her voice overcome with relief. “You’re a Luthor!” They hugged tightly with one another.

Mercy coughed, bringing them back to attention. “I’d just like to point out that Lillian isn’t… taking anymore people in, claiming to be Lena and whatnot,” she said with a tight smile. “I’m still obliged to tell her, but I doubt she’d be interested anymore. The last girl was here just a couple of hours ago and the Empress didn’t sound very keen.”

Alex looked bewildered. “But— the gala,” she sputtered. Lena was shocked into silence. “It’s in _ days. _She kept telling the public that she had high hopes that her daughter would be there by her side.”

  
Shrugging, Mercy busied herself by taking the empty cups on the mantle. “Grief can do that to you,” she said, her back facing them. “After all, Lillian has met over, hmm, five hundred Lenas by now? Surely, having your emotions played like that can bring a toll to anyone.”

  
“Mercy, please.” Lena was right beside her, touching her arm. Mercy paused, looking over at her. There was a flash of malice in her face before it went away, relaxing into Lena’s grip. Lena let go of her. “You have to understand. Can’t you at least tell us where to find her before the gala, when she gets mobbed by everyone else?” She begged as best as she could with her eyes, pleading Mercy for, well, _ mercy_. 

The woman pursed her lips. She was midway through picking up a cup, then set it down just to sigh and look at Lena. “She’s at a Russian play in Metropolis. The Dowager Princess. She never misses it.” Then she winked, and walked off to her kitchen to put things away.

  
Lena turned to look at Alex. For a moment, her face was set in stone. Then when Lena turned fully, she smiled big and bright. She gave Lena another hug. “You were incredible,” she said into Lena’s hair. Pulling apart, she squeezed her shoulders. “I always had faith in you.”

Lena smiled gently at her. “We passed the practice test,” she told her, almost sadly. “We just need to see the Empress to see if it’s really all true and I’m not another fraud.”

Alex’s smile was wistful. “I have a feeling that we don’t have to do that to know,” she told Lena. Her hands slipped off her shoulders. 

“Where’s Kara?” she asked, eyebrows pulling together. She looked towards the door, as if expecting Kara to burst out of there with her radiant smile and warm hugs. 

Alex tried to step in front of the door. “Let’s go ask Mercy if she has something to eat,” she said, all too quickly. “Kara’s probably just… wanting some fresh air.”

* * *

Mercy let them use a hotel room and a spare car despite their protests of having nothing to pay her back. She waved them off, and told them that she had complete faith that they had found the true Lena. “Only the best for royalty,” she drawled out that day, and although her smile was meant to be benign, it sent a wrongful shiver down Kara’s neck.

  
She barely spoke to Lena in those twenty-four hours. She tried her best to keep conversation, to make Lena laugh like she used to, but some of her jokes were as empty as the feeling in her chest. Lena knew something was wrong, the girl wasn’t stupid after all, but she didn’t push for anything. She just smiled sadly over at Kara whenever they caught each others’ gazes. It made it harder for Kara to concentrate.

She spent two hours in Mercy’s backyard, sitting on a bench with hands folded on her lap. Unmoving. 

When Alex went to see her, she only turned around to face her sister, her voice hoarse with emotion as she mumbled, “It really is her.” And then she broke down, right there, in Alex’s arms. Her sister didn’t say anything while she wept silently, only patting her on the back occasionally to remind her that she was there.

Right now, they were in the theater house, dressed in fancy clothes borrowed from Mercy, yet again. Alex was in a dashing suit, clearly in her most natural element as she chatted with other people and drank champagne. Kara was in a wonderful dress, nothing too frilly or sparkly like Mercy had stocked her closet with. It was blue and tight fitting, hanging over body and still making it quite comfortable to move. She switched out heels for flats. 

When Lena had emerged from the car looking like _ that, _ it took every single cell in Kara’s body not to push back in the car and kiss her neck all the way from her exposed clavicle. Her black dress was _ stunning, _and it looked even more stunning on her. Neither Kara nor Alex had purses to carry like the others, but Lena took a matching one for herself just in case. She put her necklace in there, afraid that it would clash too much with her outfit. 

Kara mingled closely by Lena’s side, though they didn’t speak to one another besides a couple hushed comments about a man’s suit and some giggles here and there. She kept Lena in her sight at all times, afraid that if she blinked or turned around, she would be gone. Again.

  
Plus, it was hard to keep her eyes off someone she found exquisitely attractive. Clearly, Lena had noticed her staring for something more than just protection, and she would sometimes crane her neck or stretch out to grab a glass to give her a taste. It made Kara’s dry tongue swell up like a balloon in her mouth, and she would sputter endlessly with whoever she was talking with. In the corner of her eye, she would see Lena smirk satisfyingly to herself, before delving back into conversation.

When the show was broadcasted to start in ten minutes, Kara stalked over to Lena. She grabbed her elbow gently, looking at her with an intense purpose. “I think I know where to find the Empress,” she said in a low voice, leaning in towards her face. She didn’t want anyone else to eavesdrop on them. “Come on.”

Lena tugged her elbow back to reel Kara in. “Why won’t you look at me?” she asked.

Her question caught Kara off guard. “I— what do you mean? I am looking at you,” she answered, looking right at Lena’s face.

  
Lena wasn’t having none of it. “You weren’t looking at me before,” she insisted. Kara tried not to wince. Lena, always the stubborn one. Always, always. “I know something’s wrong. And before I go see Mother, I want to know _ why._” She pleaded with her eyes. It made Kara swallow the rock lodged in her throat. “What did I do that scared you off so much?”

“Forget it, okay?” Kara’s brow wrinkled. She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“Kara—”

  
“Just _ forget _it.” She didn’t mean to sound so harsh. To make Lena flinch back like that. To make Lena’s eyes hardened, her soft features only ever reserved for Kara gone. She turned around so she couldn’t see her face, and strode to where she knew the Empress was. She knew Lena was following her by the soft clicks of the heels.

  
They stopped at the very end of the hallway, where the white door was slightly ajar for them to slip through. Kara looked around them, satisfied that no one was there. She peeked through the cracks of the door and saw two seats, both of them occupied by women. One had a large crown.

She looked back at Lena, who had her arms crossed with a frigid expression. Kara gulped down her guilt. “I’ll go in there and introduce you properly. After all, a princess needs her entrance.” She tried her hand with a big smile, and was endlessly relieved to see Lena’s lips tilt upwards. “Stay here, please.”

  
“I won’t go anywhere.”

Kara glanced at her. She held her eyes for God knows how long, before slipping through the cracks of the door. 

It let her in without a single creak. She stalked towards the women, trying her best not to frighten them. Then, a handshake away from where they were, she made her presence known by coughing quite loudly.

Both women turned. One of them was Mercy, who already had a coy smile on her face as if she was waiting for her arrival. The one with the crown was obviously the Empress, who looked back at her with a vacant expression. There was nothing etched in her face that reminded her of Lena. Not a single thing.

  
“I…” She lost her train of thought for a moment, before she rebooted her brain and cleared her throat to sound more confident. “I want to present to you the lost princess of Metropolis, the Grand Duchess Lena Luthor. She awaits your go-ahead, your Highness.”

  
Mercy looked like she was trying not to laugh. Lillian hushed her with the raise of her hand, then looked back at Kara with a simple eyebrow raised in question. “You are the seventh person tonight to claim my daughter’s reappearance,” she said coolly. 

“I know,” Kara said quickly. “But, it’ll take no time at all. If you just take one look at her, one good look—”

  
“You’ve already wasted enough of my time.”

  
The anger that rose with Kara’s voice made her chest tight. Each word came out more biting than the last. It was pent up inside of her for so long that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t screamed and slapped the Empress yet. She only kept her cool (as best as she could) because Lena was waiting for her. Waiting for her to tell her that all of this wasn’t for nothing.

  
“She’s the princess!” she shouted. Lillian showed nothing on her face. “You _ have _ to believe me! She’s not a wannabe actress like everyone else. I didn’t _ come _ here to scam you— hell, I don’t even _ want _ the money! You can keep whatever you want, I just want you to _ look at her, _ to look at her in the face and tell the world you found your daughter. Because it’s _ her. _ I know it’s her. She’s been waiting for you for _ years _and you never came to get her and she’s—”

  
“You don’t want the money?” Lillian asked her, sounding surprised for the first time.

  
“No.” The truth in her voice almost made her sway. The sound of money sounded really good. She knew Lena wouldn’t really mind either. Alex needed the money to get to the academy. She needed it to pay Clark back, even though he insisted he didn’t need anything from her. But Lena was worth a thousand times more than all the gold in the world. She was priceless. Not for sale. Never. Not again. 

  
Lillian looked at her for a long while. Then, in the same colorless voice as she greeted Kara with, she said, “Bring her in.”

* * *

Lena waited idly outside for Kara to come get her. She fidgeted with her purse, nails grazing over the zipper. Her heels made it harder and harder for her to walk as the night went on, but she didn’t dare reach down and rub at them.

  
“Lena?”

At the sound of her name, she turned to look. There was a woman about six feet away from her. She was holding a thin leaflet in her hand, which Lena assumed to do something with the play, and openly gaped at Lena with a slackened jaw. Her brunette hair looked dark in the shadowed hallways of the theater house. 

  
There was a tickle of a memory in Lena’s head. Of a girl who hoisted her up over the kitchen vents, then Lena stuck her hand out and helped her inside in return. Their giggles were free and young as they shimmied out of the kitchen with jelly tarts. 

  
“Sam!” she greeted joyfully. 

Sam tackled her into a hug, chanting something like “it’s you, it’s really you” repeatedly until Lena couldn’t bear it anymore. She pried herself from Sam’s strong grasp, laughing softly. “What are you doing here?” 

  
“I was going to ask you the same thing, Miss… Miss Deserter!” Sam accused pathetically. She was slumping with relief, her eyes light with childish glee. “You leave me for ten years, letting me think you were dead, and you come back in a dress that shows off your big cleavage. Luthors really do like to make theatrical entrances, huh?”

Lena couldn’t help but laugh louder, the joy in her body lighting itself on fire. She was genuinely happy, securing it in her brain that finally, _ finally _ she knew she was truly Lena Luthor. “To be fair, I didn’t know who I was for ten years,” she told her friend with a sorry smile.

  
  
“_Jesus, _Lena,” Sam complained. “You have to catch me up on everything. Where are you sitting?”

  
“Oh, actually I was going to see my mother,” she said, a little timidly. “To tell her.”

Sam’s face stretched into understanding. She put a hand on Lena’s forearm comfortingly, and before she could make up a pep talk on the spot, the white door beside Lena swung open. Their heads turned to look just as Kara poured in, sweat on her brow. 

  
She grinned at Lena when she caught her eye. Then her gaze shifted over to Sam and the hand over Lena’s arm, and Sam dropped it without thinking. Her eyes snapped back to Lena’s, already so distracted. “She— she said she wants to come see you,” she said, a little breathless.

Lena and Sam shared a look. “Well, good luck now, ranger,” Sam said with a teasing half smile. She gave Lena a side hug and made her promise to find her somewhere in the lower quadrant before darting off. 

  
She left Kara and Lena standing there, albeit awkwardly. Kara took a step towards her, her apprehension giving way to subtle nervousness. “Lena, I’m really sorry about how I treated you,” she said quietly. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I can’t explain it all to you right now, but I think your mom can. And Lena, being with you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s only been a couple of days, but holy _ God_, all those times I wanted—”

Lena shut her up by grabbing the fabric of her dress. She planted a peck on Kara’s lips. It wasn’t a short kiss that you give to elementary school boys behind the school yard, or a long drawn one taken for the shots of a camera. It was an in between, a kiss that made her visualize the face behind her closed eyelids, one that made her lips feel warm against a pair that pressed back so ardently against hers. When she let go, her bottom lip was tingling with the vow to press them back with Kara’s as soon as she can.

Kara’s eyes fluttered open, her blue eyes blown out and lips redder than it used to be. Her hands were pressed on Lena’s hips, but she let go with the bite of her lip. “I want you too,” Lena said huskily, her voice feeling unused from the excitement of the kiss. She was conscious of it until Kara’s eyes zeroed in on her even more, the grays in her irises becoming a beautiful silver. “I want you too, after all of this. Just wait for me, okay?”

  
“Okay,” Kara said breathlessly. Lena smiled tenderly at her. And she smiled back, the love in her eyes wonderfully big.

They stayed like that for a heartbeat, before Kara was the first to step back. She planted a soft kiss on Lena’s forehead, then smiled at her before darting away. 

  
And when she left, Lena couldn’t help but feel like she was walking through the stage, living a life that could only be accomplished through the exaggerated retellings of a romance. How lucky she was, to have a girl who promised to wait for her so unquestionably.

  
The door opened with ease, and Lena could see the heads of two women looking out onto the stage. The play had begun, opening their night with a monologue of the protagonist while ballerinas danced around her with elegant movements. The pit in Lena was tugging at her to go back, but stopped when she saw the crown perched on top of one of the women. Big and grand, something that could easily weight over ten pounds. 

She willed her feet forward, one step at a time. Her shaky breaths were beginning to shudder her chest. What if her mother forced her to stay? She banished the thought away as soon as it came. Her mother loved her, she told herself, her mother would let her do anything she wanted, including to let Kara into her life. Because Kara made her happy, and no mother would deny that of a child.

  
“Mother,” she called out. The word felt unfamiliar on her tongue.

The Empress turned to look over at her, shoulder poking out from her high chair. When she caught sight of Lena, she smiled in a way that made the wrinkles on her cheeks apparent. Beside her, Mercy waved her over with a friendly wave. She walked closer over to them.

“The girl wasn’t lying,” the Empress began, eyes judging every part of Lena’s body, “you look so much like my daughter.”

  
“I have reasons to believe that I am,” Lena told her as confidently as she could. She fiddled with her purse zipper again.

  
The Empress arched a perfected brow at her. Her words were cold, calculating. “What reasons do you have to believe that, dear?” she asked her lowly. “Is it because you know my family inside out? Is it because this girl you were with, she insisted that you were Lena so she could take the money I offered the world to find you?”

  
Lena flinched. The Empress knew she struck a nerve, and she sat back in her chair with a bigger smile. But Lena took it as best as she could, willing her voice to remain even and calm. “I have a necklace that I brought with me to the orphanage, when I lost everything else,” she said, unzipping her purse as she said so, “it says _ together in Metropolis. _You gave it to me.”

The memory was unearthed from her just a couple of hours before, when she took out the necklace to stare into its gem and the odd ridge coming along its side. The Empress’ look shifted into something like surprise as she took it out for both women to see. “Dear, come sit down,” the Empress whispered softly. Mercy got up without another word and curtsied as she made her way out. Lena took her seat with shaking hands.

  
The Empress gently took hold of the necklace, peering into it with expressionless eyes. “Yes,” she finally settled on saying, her words small. “Yes, I gave this to you. A long time ago.”

  
“You gave it to me because it opened my birth mother’s music box,” she said to the Empress. It came to her in little splices. Of how the Empress was merely a stepmother, how Lex was only a half brother but loved her to little pieces regardless. Lionel’s gentle kiss on her hand as they danced around the ballroom, a memory so treasured that it warmed her heart. “You wanted me to forgive you for yelling at me about how I wasn’t your real daughter. So you took the key to the music box and asked a blacksmith to forge it into a necklace.”

  
The Empress hummed in thought. Her gloved fingers let go of the necklace. “I was going off to Metropolis to do some work there with your father. It upset you so much that Lex wasn’t even able to comfort you.”

  
“It did,” Lena agreed. She gripped the necklace. “All I wanted to know, for the past ten years, was about where I belonged. And now that I found you, my mother, my _ only _living family, I…” 

  
Lillian smiled at her. Without another word, she bent down and produced a small music box that fit snugly on her lap. Lena almost gasped. “You brought it here?” she asked in surprise.

  
“Why wouldn’t I? If you’re a mother looking for your lost child, you bring the only evidence of that love around with you,” Lillian said with a wry smile. Her gloved finger traced over the edge of the rounded box. It was ornate, golden and green flowers flecked around it. Complementary to the necklace now clutched in Lena’s hand. “May I, dear?” she said gently, a hand outstretched to her.

Hesitantly, Lena gave it to her. She took the necklace swiftly, jamming it into the side of the handheld box. She gave a good couple turns before removing the keyed necklace. A soft tinkling noise filled the air, a lost lullaby that prickled Lena’s eyes. Then the covering opened to reveal two figures, a tall man with bald hair and square shoulders, along with a little girl with long black hair and a shiny green dress.

  
“Oh, Lena,” Lillian crooned. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Lena swung her arms around her mother, sniffling her tears away. She was prepared for this moment to go badly, for her to be ushered out for not being the real princess. She also prepared for the joy it put in her heart for being authentic, ready for the sobs and sniffles as she told her mother everything that has happened to her for the past ten years.

But there was nothing in her heart. There was no ache in her belly, no rose-colored sight. Just a bitter taste on the roof of her mouth.

  
“Do you know what happened to Father and Lex?” she cried. Lillian watched her with the music still stuffing the air, mixing with the ballad of the ballerinas below. Her necklace was on Lillian’s lap. “Who was vile enough to curse our family like that?”

Lillian caressed her cheek and hushed her. “I want you to see something,” she said, her words still serene as ever. But there was an excitement to her voice. True, real excitement. Lena zipped up her words. 

Her mother lifted the music box for her to see again. She popped the two figurines off between two fingers, causing Lena to inhale sharply in surprise. From the soft glow of the lights in their balcony, Lena could see the hole in her music box, along with something tan. Lillian fished it out, presenting a small rolled up piece of parchment. 

Setting the music box down with a delicate hand, Lillian unrolled the parchment with the other. She read it with swift eyes, every word causing her lips to turn up more and more. “Hmm,” she said amusingly. Lena was too shocked to move. “So it was true.”

  
When Lena still made no effort to move or speak, Lillian laughed, her graceful persona poised as ever. But her motherly caress and tone was gone, replaced by a nearly wicked way of speaking. “Lionel loved you more than anything,” she began, bitterness coating her words, “more than me or Lex, actually. When you moved in with us, he took your mother’s music box for the longest time before telling me to give the missing key to you, as a peace offering between us. The fool didn’t know I saw him slip something in the box the next day, but I couldn’t get it to open because _you _had the key.”

  
The realization hit Lena faster than a freight train. Her fingers felt numb and her head swirled viciously with her shaky words. “You put the hit on the family.” _ For a piece of paper? _she asked herself, dumbfounded. For a fatherly love confession? A father’s words to his daughter?

“Not on the family, dear.” Lillian rolled her eyes before rolling the parchment again. “On you and Lionel. The black sheep of the family. The _ weak, _ cowardly ones of the Luthor name. Lionel was a terrible Emperor. _You _had the music box and the key to open it.” Her same smile was plastered on her face, yet this was the first time Lena saw it through the light. It sent shivers through her entire body. “I had an inkling as to what Lionel put in it.”

“What— what was it?” Lena’s chest felt restricted. Like a snake was coiled around her ribs, pressing into her, suffocating her.

  
“Oh, I suppose I do owe you that much, dear,” Lillian said, sighing through her nose. “It’s an inheritance. All your father’s hidden fortune, including documents about obtaining the leases Lex is working tirelessly to get.”

  
“Lex is alive.” Her words bore a heavy weight on her body. “He— he loves me. He’ll come for me, and he’ll—”

“Lena, who do you think led you to your room?” Lillian’s voice were sharper than a knife. “Your room had no exit, we made sure of it. He merely thought of you as someone he could mold into a parasite, a legacy for him to continue.”

  
Lena’s eyes prickled with angry tears. “Well, clearly you didn’t think it through enough,” she snapped. “There was a hidden wall in my room. A kitchen girl—”

  
“Oh, yes, I’m aware of the kitchen girl.” For the first time, Lena felt true fear. She felt it in every part of her body as Lillian leaned closer to her, her eyes alive with villainous victory. “You see, dear, I’ve put a hit on her too. I want her alive, just so I can see the look in her eyes as I let other people assault her, _ ravish _her—”

_“If you put a hand on her—”_ Lena snarled.

  
“You’ll what, dear?” Lillian mocked. She leaned back in her chair. Lena felt a presence over her shoulder, and her entire body was chilled into horror. “I don’t think you can do very much when you’re fifty feet underwater with weights on your ankles. Right, Mercy?”

“You’re forgetting me,” said a rough voice beside her. Before Lena could react, she was pressed into her seat by two strong hands. 

  
“Oh hush, Otis, you’ll get your turn.”

  
A cloth went over Lena’s mouth and she thrashed around, her muscles aching under the grip on her shoulders. She breathed in too much and her world turned black at the edges. She started hyperventilating, not sure of how to get out. Every part of her body screamed to get out. To get back to Kara.

Then she closed her eyes, and slumped in her seat. 

* * *

Kara fiddled nervously with her tie. They were out in the wardrobe room of the theater, lights shining bright on them as Alex tried on another identical white suit. “Will you stop that?” her sister chided, giving her a slightly annoyed look. “She’ll do fine. We _ know _it’s her. So will her mother.”

“I know. I’m just antsy for her,” she said hastily. Alex hummed happily under her breath as she picked Streaky up and put him up on the stool next to the mirror. Winn let them in, grinning happily at their surprised looks before ushering them inside to tell them that Clark had gotten wind of their situation and asked for them to rendezvous here. Clark promoted Alex on the spot, asking her to try on some of the formal suits in his trunk to “get the feel of it”.

“Kara,” Alex warned. She turned around to face her. Kara had to admit, the white suit and its golden lapels did look quite dashing on her. “Be happy for her, okay? She’s not going anywhere. She even told you herself that she’ll come find you afterwards.”

“I am,” Kara muttered under her breath. “I don’t know, Alex, I just…”

Alex gave her a soft look. She reached out and grabbed her sister’s hand. “She’ll be _ fine,_” she insisted. She squeezed her hand in reassurance. “It’s everything she ever wanted. That’s why we did this for her, remember?”

Kara forced a smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said, her words coming out hoarse. “I’m sorry. I just had this feeling…”

  
“Everything is changing too fast, I get it,” Alex agreed. “It’s overwhelming. But try and focus on the good. She was missing for _ten years._ Lena used to be your best friend— and you have her back, hell maybe even more than before. Just take a deep breath.”

So she did. One breath in and then out, then finally her body expelled out of the bad nerves in her system. She smiled more genuinely at her sister. “Thank you,” she said.

Alex laughed. “Now fix your tie, will you? You gotta impress the girl.”

Kara meddled with said tie. She tightened the knot and set it on straight, then flattened her suit vest. She changed out of her dress for something more practical for the outdoors, because she wanted to take Lena out on a proper date in Metropolis to celebrate her homecoming. Her suit pants made it easier for her to walk, and she could finally breathe in an outfit that wasn’t restricting her diet with potstickers. 

  
Before she could complain to Alex about the constraint of her tie, she caught something from around the corner. There were two figures shadowed by the darkness, hauling a limp third in between them. They crouched low and moved quickly, disappearing into the camouflage of the curtains.

Alex caught her gaze. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  
“Nothing,” she assured her sister. She was jittery, about to take off after them. There was something wrong in the pit of her stomach. “I’m going to check something out for a second. See you later?”

  
Alex knew her like the back of her hand. She knew something was wrong, but didn’t press Kara for anything besides casting a worried look. “Be careful.”

Nodding, Kara quickly ran off to where she saw them disappear. Her legs carried her away from the backstage to behind the curtains, where she saw a slightly opened door waiting for her. It lead out into the night. In a heartbeat, she flung it open and ran outside.

  
Her eyes darted around her, to every face in the crowd and the cars that honked at her for being on the street. She spotted a large coat and a familiar woman holding someone unconscious to her right, nobody sparing them a glance. The panic rose in her throat when she caught glimpses of the woman’s face, wisps of black hair covering her and her pale skin already turning milky. 

Kara dashed off without more prodding. She had no weapon, no way of self defense, but every part of her body was screaming to do something. The wind whipped her hair around. When she was a couple feet away from them, Mercy noticed her and looked rather dismayed at her appearance. 

“Oh, I should’ve known _ you _would come after us,” she said in annoyance. The man next to her turned to look, and a lopsided grin made way on his face. He pulled out a pistol from his coat and shot in between Kara’s feet.

  
“Warning shot, missy,” he said, eyebrows raised in challenge.

Kara doubled back, panting heavily as she looked between them. Lena was laid against the railing of the sidewalk. Below them was nothing but glistening water that looked nearly black by the moonlight. They were on a bridge with no one around. All at once, Kara knew what they wanted to do. They were going to toss her in there and leave her to die.

A strangled cry in her throat, she charged forward and grabbed hold of the pistol in the man’s hand. She grabbed the muzzle and pushed on it, causing the gun to face ninety degrees away from her. In surprise, the man pulled the trigger, then let go when the jump of it bent his wrist at an odd angle.

Kara took the gun and fumbled it with her hands. She pointed it at Mercy, who held her hands up in surrender. The large man next to her did the same thing, though he was glaring hard at her.

  
“You wouldn’t pull it even if it was your only chance,” Mercy said matter-of-factly. Kara took a step backwards from them. 

Her finger touched the warm trigger. “Let Lena go,” she demanded, willing her voice to steel itself. Mercy’s eyebrows rose slowly. “We can all walk away from this.”

  
Mercy hummed in thought. “Or maybe just us.”

The man reached forward and punched her in the gut, grabbing her wrists and pulling it sideways. Her vision danced with dots, and her body was being pulled along the edge under her back was bent backwards over the broad railing of the bridge. When she tried to sit up, an arm was forced onto her neck and she dangled uselessly over the edge, knees bent over to grip the underside of the balustrade. 

  
She wheezed painfully, every second harder to breath. The top of her head was pointed directly at the churning of the sea below.

“You know, Lillian told us she wanted you alive,” Mercy mused, clicking her tongue. She put the safety back on the gun. “But I don’t think she’d be too mad if I tell her you went over the edge to come after her dear daughter and drowned.”

“The water’s freezing,” her companion replied. Even upside down, Kara could see the grin on his face. “If she doesn’t drown, a hundred other things could kill her.”

  
“What do you say, Otis?” Mercy purred. “Give her a little nudge into the pool?”

  
Before Kara could sit up and clobber him in the face as a last resort, Mercy went flying backwards. Otis, loosening her grip on her neck in his confusion, howled in surprise when something black and furry chortled angrily at him and pounced on his back. Kara sucked in a breath greedily, sitting up on the railing before letting her feet meet steady ground.

  
Lena pointed the gun at Mercy. Her eyes were lit with an anger Kara had never seen.

  
“Get out!” she snapped. “Both of you!”

  
“Lena, this isn’t what it looks like,” Mercy told her sweetly. She was on the ground, one hand on her grimacing head and the other holding out towards her. “We were just—”

With a loud bang that echoed through the night, Lena shot her shoulder. 

Cursing, Mercy clapped a hand over it with wide eyes. Otis hefted her up by the waist and they skidded away, stumbling and knocking against each other as they disappeared for the second time into the night. Kara noticed the deep scratches in his coat, revealing bloody red marks on his skin. 

A meow made her look down. Purring and rubbing himself in between her legs and all around, Streaky looked calm as ever. Overcome by relief, she bent down and stroked his head. “Where would I be without you?” she asked the cat.

By the sound of laughter, she looked up. Lena was standing over her, an equally relieved smile on her face. She looked battered and bruised, her hair sticking out in all kinds of directions and her dress torn in certain places.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, blurting out the only thought in her head.

When she got up, Lena hit her stomach with the butt of the gun. _ “Ow!” _She winced, but the blow wasn’t as hard as she made it out to be. “What was that for? That hurt!”

  
To her surprise, Lena started laughing. Her eyes were glossy with tears, and when she spoke, her words were coated wetly with relief and delight. “You told me you were going to wait for me.” She dropped the gun, leaving it abandoned on the floor.

  
“I couldn’t.” Kara couldn’t stop staring at her. “I— I mean, yeah I was going to wait for you. I waited for you for ten years, are you kidding me? But I knew something was wrong, and I just had to check, I needed to make sure you were—”

  
“Kara,” she said with a laugh. It sounded nearly strangled. Her fingers brushed lightly over Kara’s cheek. “I’ve really missed you,” she murmured. 

“I’ve missed you too.” Her words, a near muffle to the wind, was gentle on her lips. She shivered when Lena’s fingers traveled down to her jaw, then all the way to her neck. It rested gently over her sternum, pressing tenderly over her heart. “Lena, I really missed you,” she said, her words so strained that it was closer to a whimper.

She tugged Lena close by her waist. Lena laughed, lips brushing over her neck. Then she pressed a kiss on the underside of her jaw. Wanting more, Kara swallowed and tilted her head down, eyes focused so intently on Lena. 

Lena blew a breath out from her mouth, the puff gentle against Kara’s face. “I love you so much,” she murmured. The fire that was in Kara’s abdomen lit up like a furnace, sparkling embers enchanting the beat of her heart. 

Then she closed the distance between them. Her lips were firm against Kara’s, moving softly yet persistently. A slip of the tongue along her lips made Kara sigh, her hand coming to rest on Lena’s shoulder blade. The gentleness of their kiss was gone, replaced by the need to kiss more, to relearn every part of each other that they missed for _ years. _Every sigh and zealous peck jolted every nerve in Kara’s torso like a tuning fork, humming her body with a melodic joy.

When they parted, limbs tangled with each other like they were afraid to be pulled apart, Kara drew in a breath knowing that Lena Luthor had finally come home. 

* * *

That same night, Kara told her cousin about what happened. He arrested the Empress immediately, all the evidence already on her person. They confiscated the deed signed by Lionel Luthor and gave it to Lena, who was met with riches she never knew she could possess all at once.

With no one to run the state of Metropolis, Clark stepped in. Alex was at his immediate right hand. Lillian and Lex were found and thrown into jail with several life sentences under their belts, and Lena spared them no second glance. The gala, a night that clamored several hundred people to Metropolis, still went on. Lena and Kara danced to their heart’s content, laughing and drinking while they pointedly ignored the sores in their feet.

The pair went back to National City on a private yacht, a luxury that Alex insisted that they very least deserved. Half of her money went to different orphanages, including the one Lena spent most of her life in. The rest of it went into getting themselves a cozy house and paying off the tuition for Lena’s studies. Kara commented regularly on how brilliant she was, and that she would be doing the world a favor by putting it to use.

  
Kara lifted her girlfriend up by the waist, spinning her round and round in clumsy circles on the deck of their yacht. Lena laughed, patting her arms in an attempt to get herself to be put down. When Kara obliged, they kissed for a brief, haughty moment until they were tangled in each other again, giggling profusely.

  
“Sometimes, I forget how strong you are,” Lena grumbled in her arms.

Kara kissed her head. “You never complain about it,” she hummed. Then, lulled by the sounds of boats in the distance and the song Lena was humming under her breath, she spoke again. “We should get married.”

  
“What?” Lena looked up at her with an owlish blink.

  
Kara shook off her own surprise. Taking it in stride, she grinned at Lena. “We should get married,” she repeated, taking in Lena’s furrowed brow, “I mean we’re basically on a honeymoon. We can elope in National City, if you want it.”

  
“Why—” Lena rebooted her thoughts. “Why do you want to get married?”

Her grin became more mild. She nervously rubbed an arm, stepping back from Lena to give her girlfriend some space. “We don't have to. But I know you’ve been looking for your family for so long and I hate that they turned out like that. I hate it,” she mumbled. Lena kissed the corner of her lips, leaving a hand over her cheek, but stayed quiet to let her continue. “So I was thinking, maybe, that if we got married that you’d feel like you had a family again.”

Kara’s words made Lena’s eyes turn glossy. She blinked them away. Nervous, Kara added, “But it was just a suggestion. We don’t have to. You… you already make everything perfect, so—”

  
“I love you,” Lena interrupted. She sniffled, then pressed their foreheads together. Kara wrapped her arms around her waist protectively. “You’re already home to me, Kara. You always have been.”

Overwhelmed by joy, Kara kissed her full on the mouth. Then she swept Lena off her feet, and they laughed as their riverboat became dark under a tunnel. When they came home to National City, they took a stroll, hand in hand, to find matching rings. 

“When you look at it, I want you to think about me,” Kara told her, bringing Lena's hand up to her lips and planting a kiss on the finger that would soon be joined by a band. “So you can remember that you never left my heart.”

**Author's Note:**

> My lovely Russian friend, Anastasia (YES that's her actual name it made me laugh lmao), translated the singular Russian line in this fic.  
ты угрожаешь мне, что ли? = Are you threatening me or something?
> 
> Come throw tomatoes at me in the comments or on my Tumblr, @cosmiccaptain!


End file.
